Snippets
by Goldenapplepie
Summary: A collection of short one-shots based on prompts from the comment fic community on livejournal.  Each chapter is a separate story - most will be Max/Alec.
1. In The Moment

Prompt: _Last Lines, Alec/Max, "He could live with that." _

He's never been one for deep thoughts or heavy ruminations. He likes to live in the moment – he plans for the future only as far as he needs to get to his next meal, the next heist, the next girl. Logan's all about the big picture; he sees everything in terms of how it fits into the whole, tiny pieces in some messed up jigsaw puzzle, trying to cobble together a better world. Alec's never seen the point in wishing for something you'll never have.

She's usually gone when he wakes up in the morning. That's okay with him – shark DNA can be a harsh mistress, and if he has to share her mornings with paperwork or rowdy X6s or whatever home-brewed catastrophe is happening today, at least her nights are all his. They fill them with midnight rendezvous outside of seedy mob clubs, drag races across town just ahead of the bad guys, heart pounding and his blood pumping in his ears so hard he thinks he might go deaf, but he can still hear Max's laughter ringing through the air next to him. They usually get away clean, X5 agility more than a match for whatever the city throws at them, but he loves it even when something goes wrong, and they have to scrape and move and runrun_run_, pulling off some daring hijinks that he'll tell Dalton about later just to see how wide the kid's eyes can get before Max pops him one. He shouldn't look forward to her hitting him as much as he does, but hey, it's a screwed up world out there, and he'll take her hands on him however he can get them. Not that he's hard up for that or anything – the best part of their arrangement, as far as he's concerned, is that when the fighting and the running and the bragging is over, he gets to go back to their crappy little one room hole-in-the-wall apartment with her in his arms. When she kisses him he can feel the adrenaline start to spike, his heart rate skyrocketing like it always does when he's about to do something stupidly dangerous, and he grins against her lips because it doesn't get much better than this.

Whenever Max ends up leaving TC (and it's happening a lot more these days, people finally learning that there are worse things out there than some messed up kids with bar codes on their necks) he very carefully goes about his normal routine, grabs some lunch, flirts with the cute new X5 on cafeteria duty, squashes whatever crisis is currently brewing down in Command before heading back to his office to go over the latest set of blueprints his fence on the outside has dropped off. He doesn't ask where she goes. She always comes to find him when she gets back, and he tells himself that that's what matters.

They've never said I love you, but he knows her better than anyone, knows how hard she throws herself into everything, how much she gives. He likes where they are now, wouldn't trade it for anything – not misty dreams of "maybe someday," insubstantial as the Seattle fog, or fevered memories from his first taste of freedom, where he had a different girl (or two) every night. Things might not be perfect, but they're real, and solid, and he finds himself believing in it more with every passing day.

He likes to live in the moment, and if this moment is all they have, well...

He could live with that.


	2. Had To Be Done

Prompt: _Anti-Heroes/Dark Heroes, Max/Alec, They do what they have to to survive and keep the others safe._

"You ready, Maxie?"

She glances over at Alec, sees the tension in his jaw and knows that he doesn't like this anymore than she does, never mind the fact that it'd been his idea in the first place. It's an act that they put on, their own little farce – Alec plays the bad guy, cajoles and entices, tries to talk her in to something that he doesn't actually want to do, while she storms and rages and hides behind her borrowed morality before giving in to what they both know is inevitable.

"Just try to keep up," she responds, and is happy with how her voice comes out, like she's in control. The fence around the warehouse is at least ten feet and topped with barbed wire, like that's gonna stop them – she takes it in one smooth leap, sees Alec landing lightly out of the corner of her eye, his body turned to cover her back as she starts to run.

The actual fight is something of a letdown. The guards are spaced out enough that they can take them out one at a time; the most they get out is a startled grunt as her fist connects with their jaws. Inside it gets a little trickier, but nothing they can't handle – Max goes to the backroom, takes out the bodyguard standing watch over the captive girls, hustles them out to the waiting van that Eyes Only has generously provided while Alec deals with the rest. She heads back just in time to see him handcuffing the last of the mooks to a support pillar.

"You stealing my moves now?" she demands, and he grins at her as they hear sirens start to scream in the distance, not even out of breath.

She wanders into TC's sparse medlab the next day, pilfered papers stuck underneath her arm. Alec's there "supervising," which really means laughing at Joshua's enthusiasm as he directs the group of mingled X6s, 8s, and nomlies through unpacking the new supplies. Max can't help but grin a little herself, but it fades as she goes to stand next to him, tossing the papers down on the table with feigned nonchalance.

"Made the news again."

She watches his eyes drift down to the open page, sees them sweeping across the stock photos of the two of them, taken during their first few days here.

"I think they really captured my good side," he murmurs absently, leaning back against the counter next to her. She snorts, resisting the temptation to say that he looks better in the picture than he does now. He's gotten skinnier, the muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief underneath the paper-thin skin, dark bruises below his still bright eyes. None of them are at their best these days.

"So," he asks, still casual, "nothing else in there about us?"

She shakes her head, fixes her eyes on Joshua. If she keeps looking at him then maybe she can help convince herself that it was all worth it.

"Some stuff on page 14 about a break-in at Harbor Lights. Cops think it might be gang related – guess they cleaned them out of a bunch of stuff." Enough supplies to get a medium-sized medlab up and running anyway, plus six months supply of Tryptophan carefully hidden amongst the hundred-bucks a pop bottles.

"Stealing from a hospital, huh? Sounds like the sort of stuff you'd expect to see on the front page."

She's saved from having to answer by the sound of her beeper going off. She knows it's Logan, knows that he'd figure things out eventually; knew even back when she OK'd the raid that he would put the pieces together. She'll need to answer him at some point, but she's just not up to the judgment right now.

They're the human face of the transgenic menace, her and Alec, and the more they flaunt that the easier it is for the rest of them to do the things that need to be done.

She tries not to think of Sonrisa, switching out cancer meds for sugar pills, or Theo, dying alone in the back of a cab on the way to the emergency room. She just leans her head against Alec's shoulder, watches Joshua swing a tiny X8 boy up onto his shoulders, handing him up boxes to be put away on the highest shelves, and whispers softly, "Tell me again how it had to be done?"

He shrugs his other shoulder, and she feels a stab of envy for the way he can keep his body loose despite the tension she can feel underneath. He's quiet for so long that she thinks maybe he's gotten tired of playing the bad guy at last, but then his lips touch her hair and he murmurs, soft enough that none of the others will be able pick it up even with transgenic hearing.

"Had to be done."


	3. The Hot One

Prompt: _Watching a show, Alec and others, watching Supernatural and noticing how oddly familiar Dean looks_

"Trust me, Max, you're gonna love it. It's a _classic_ of Pre-Pulse entertainment. You've got your end of the world apocalypse, guns, hot guys – well, one hot guy, really – it's right up your alley."

Max raised an eyebrow from her side of the couch as he slid the video in, Joshua sitting on the floor between them with a book in his hands. "Whatever. Just remember the deal, Pretty Boy."

Alec waved her words off with a muttered "yeah, yeah," eyes already glued to the television set. Max settled back into her seat, nursing a beer and wondering just how long she's gonna have to put up with this for. She's pretty sure there are better things she could be doing – okay, maybe none that are coming to mind right this moment, seeing how it's like thirty degrees and pouring outside, and it _is_ always nice to spend time with Joshua, but Alec could have at least asked before dragging her over right after wor-

Dean Winchester appears on the screen, and Max's brain shuts down.

She can hear the sound of Joshua's book falling closed, sees him sitting up straighter as they stare at the television set. He's in front of her so she can't be sure, but she's willing to bet that he's got the same look of pole-axed shock on his face as well. It's not Alec – that's blatantly apparent – but it's Alec as he might look in ten, fifteen years, if they live that long. If the Familiars or the government don't kill them first. It's... "weird" doesn't even begin to come close to describing it, and she misses the first five minutes of the episode to shock before she manages to calm down and actually start paying attention to more than Alec's face on some old guy's body. And then once she does, well...

She doesn't actually mean to get so caught up in watching it, if for no other reason than the fact that Alec's more insufferable than usual when he's being smug, but she has to admit it's... not bad. There's a scene or two that actually makes her jump, and if she just can't get seem to stop herself from staring at "Dean" whenever he comes on the screen, well, at least none of the others can tell. From the corner of her eye she can see Alec leaning forward as his doppelganger throws a punch, vicarious longing obvious in the lines of his body, and it's enough to make her grin before focusing all her attention back to the show. When the episode ends she has to blink, realizes that she's moved forward in her seat in an unconscious echo of Alec's pose, and tries to settle back casually without letting him know. From his smirk as he turns to face her, she's unsuccessful.

"So? What'cha think? Not too shabby, huh?" She knows what he's fishing for, but there's no way in hell that she's gonna go there.

"The big guy's not too bad," Max offers, and hears Alec choke on his beer.

"That _Sasquatch_?" he sputters, turning around in indignation. "C'mon, Maxie, even you have to have better taste than that!"

She shrugs. "Reminds me of Joshua."

The dogboy in question looked up uncomfortably as Alec stared at him in almost-betrayal before turning back to her.

"No. No, look, you're not allowed to think that Sam is the hot one. Okay? _Dean_ is the hot one, Sam is the smart one..." His voice trailed off, and Max shifted uncomfortably in her seat as Alec's face started to light up. "Oho, I get it now. Got a thing for the brainy ones, huh Maxie? Shoulda figured."

She slugged him in the shoulder as hard as she could, grinning viciously at his over exaggerated wince.

"Shut up and pass the popcorn."


	4. Instincts

Prompt: _Three Sentences, Alec & Joshua or Alec/Joshua, instincts._

Alec's never trusted his instincts; Manticore might have spliced cat and shark and God knows what else into their DNA, but they had no use for anything that couldn't be studied, quantified, contained - they demanded absolute obedience, and if you wanted to survive you learned pretty damn quickly how to ignore any urges that didn't benefit the mission.

When he first meets Joshua, down in the bowels below the base, he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, because it feels so much like a test, one of Manticore's endless tests – Y_ou've encountered an unidentified_ _combatant, inform your handler at once_ - and the urge to tell, to confess, beats thick in his skull; it ends up being a moot point, since Manticore burns down not two hours later, but it's a long time before he can bring himself to tell Joshua about his almost-betrayal.

He's never thought that Josh needed protecting, not like Max did: he may seem innocent and absurdly trusting, but Joshua has a way of seeing people more clearly than they see themselves, knows just what to say to make people open up to him, make them feel needed(Max) or wanted(Alec) or loved(Annie); Alec knows the power that words can have, because he's spent his life trying to master the things that Joshua can do instinctively.


	5. Secret

Prompt: _Secrets, Max/Alec, pseudo sex to keep the secret. _

"This is all your fault," he hissed, pressing her up against the wall, feeling her jean-clad legs come up around his waist to support her weight. Max rolled her eyes, already tired of this argument, the familiar rush of anger surging up through her.

"You gonna stand there and bitch all night, or are you gonna make this look good?" she taunted, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, fingers twisting in his hair to the point of pain as she forced him to look at her, her gaze a challenge. She felt a surge of satisfaction rumble through her as Alec's eyes darkened, watching the anger ignite like a powderkeg in their depths.

He yanked her down against him, hard, enough to bruise even a transgenic, and she bit down a curse as the shock of it vibrated through her, hands scrabbling down his back, clawing for purchase. His cock lay between them, hard and heavy, right where she wanted it, and if this was anyone else she'd almost be tempted to carry this through. As it was it just made her even more pissed off, that he could find some enjoyment in this when she felt like she was going to scratch his eyes out any second.

"Real mature, Alec," she grumbled, her hands reaching down to slide underneath his sweater, running gently over the skin of his back until they reached his shoulders. He'd frozen, staring down at her in confusion at the touch – they didn't do gentle, that wasn't who they were – and she gave him a tender grin, before setting the points of her nails in his skin and yanking down, hard enough to draw blood. His whole body jumped, pressing against her as he tried to get away from the claws in his back, muscles in his face tightening as he tried to keep from screaming and only mostly succeeded, and oh, was he going to make her pay for that one.

She was right. Before she knew what was happening he had dropped her, spinning her around and forcing her up against the brick, her fingers clenched tight into fists against the wall and his body behind her, all hard planes and muscle, keeping her pressed in place as he stroked his hand over her stomach, and if he thought she was going to just stand here and take this he was dead wrong. Max reached down, found the pressure point on his wrist and twisted, hearing Alec's curses in her ear as his hand went numb. She grinned at him over her shoulder, enjoying the way that Alec's eyes were glued to their bodies, the little gasp he gave as she molded his hand over her breast, a hot and heavy weight that he couldn't even feel.

"You're sick, you know that Max?" he asked, but his voice was shaking, and she smiled, feeling victory within her grasp. In one swift movement she twisted herself around, hands going to his shoulders as she rolled them, his back to the wall and her body pressing in against his own.

"You want this to stop, all you gotta do is say the words," she offered, her voice promising sweetness and light even while her thigh pressed up in between his legs, rubbing up against his cock through his jeans. She was aware, vaguely, that Logan had left, that this meant she should probably be pulling back now, mission accomplished, but she just couldn't bring herself to care, all her senses straining towards the man in front of her as she waited for his response.

Alec's eyes were dark with lust, teeth bared, looking almost feral in the moonlight, and she felt a thrill rush through her even before he answered.

"You first."


End file.
